Recommended items for new Drone Owners

If you’re in the Green Bay Area, you should be able to buy most of these items locally.  My recommended area dealer is Camera Corner/Connecting Point. They are terrific to deal with and a very reputable company. Ask for Steve Sauer.

1. Smart phone or tablet for viewing the video telemetry from the drone.

The preferred devices are the Apple iPad mini 4 or the iPad Pro. If you want to use a cell phone the iPhone 7+ or newer is the best choice. If you use an Apple product I recommend an authentic Apple Cable. You’ll need hardware that can run iOS 9.0 or later and Android 4.4.0 or later.

2. High Speed Micro SD Camera Card

The included card is only 16gb. You need a card with fast write speeds or you’ll wind up waiting for the the files to write to the card between photos.

My recommendation: Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB 

3. Extra Batteries

Since batteries take about an hour to charge, you’ll want at least 2 more.

4. A case for your drone

Since you spent over a thousand dollars you’ll want to protect your investment. Its also much easier to cart around in a case. You wouldn’t buy an expensive DSLR camera and not buy a case for it. There are several variations including backpack styles.

5. Sunshade

Smart phones and tablets have a nice clear display but in direct sunlight, glare will make it tough for you to see. Sunshades are usually under $20 and fold up for transport. It makes a huge difference.

6. Gimbal Guard

I repair drones and after seeing some busted up cameras, I am sold on this add-on for the Phantom 3.  While it may not completely prevent damage to your gimbal in a crash, it can greatly reduce the damage from an impact.   These guard are made of carbon fiber and attach to the landing gear with zip ties. I ordered this one from Amazon.

7. Filters

You can improve the quality of your photographs when you use filters. If you like shooting sunsets or sunrise photos you will want to look for gradient filters to even out the lighting. On bright sunny days you can improve your photos through the use of an ND4, ND8 or ND16 filter.  A polarizing filter can help cut the glare over water and other reflective surfaces.